A UPS maintenance contract books a set number of minor and major visits per year for each unit, each followed by a written report, and fixes in advance how repairs and parts are billed. Per-visit service is quoted each time.
A contract fits critical or multi-unit sites. Per-visit fits a single small UPS or one about to be replaced.
What does a UPS maintenance visit include?
UPS preventive maintenance in Canada: the eight checks we do on APC, Eaton, Vertiv and other UPS systems, what each one tells you, and what a minor maintenance includes compared with a major one.
Chapters: 0:00 Intro · 0:13 Why it matters · 0:35 Check 1. The plan · 1:03 Check 2. The room · 1:16 Check 3. The event log · 1:31 Check 4. The batteries · 2:19 Check 5. The parts that wear out · 2:51 Check 6. The tests · 3:11 Check 7. The major maintenance · 3:45 APC and Schneider Electric · 4:05 Eaton and Powerware · 4:23 Vertiv Liebert · 4:41 Check 8. The report · 5:03 Recap: minor vs major maintenance · 5:42 Our services
Chapters and transcript
Intro
A UPS keeps your equipment running when the power fails, but only if it’s maintained. This is what a maintenance visit covers: the eight checks we do on APC, Eaton, Vertiv and other UPS systems.
Why it matters
Why does it matter? At one government office, the display said more than two hours of backup. When we tested the batteries behind it, six strings out of eight had failed. Here’s how we catch that before the power goes out. The plan, the room, the event log, the batteries, the parts that wear out, the tests, the yearly major maintenance, and the report.
Check 1. The plan
Check one happens before we arrive: the plan. We settle three things with you. When we can work, whether the UPS can go on bypass, and who signs off on any test. On bypass, your equipment runs straight off building power, with no battery behind it. A hospital in the Quebec City region asked whether the visit would put their UPS on bypass. Our advice: do it online, so their equipment stays protected. Most of the visit works that way.
Check 2. The room
Check two: the room. We look at the temperature, the airflow and the dust. Heat takes years off a set of batteries. At that same office, heat was building up in a poorly ventilated room.
Check 3. The event log
Check three: the event log. It shows the recent power failures, every switch to battery or bypass, and the alarms nobody saw. There, the log showed eight power failures in eight months. That UPS had been working hard.
Check 4. The batteries
Check four: the batteries. On APC, Eaton and Vertiv UPS alike, this is where we find most problems. We look for swollen cases, acid at the vents and corrosion on the terminals. Then we measure every block, one by one: its voltage and its internal resistance. Internal resistance tells us more than voltage does. A block whose resistance is much higher than its neighbours is failing, even when its voltage looks normal. The display only estimates runtime. It doesn’t measure each block the way we do. At that office, six of the eight strings failed the test. There was acid at most of the vents, and the batteries were only four years old. Standard UPS batteries last three to five years. Long-life ones can go eight years or more, in a cool room.
Check 5. The parts that wear out
Check five: the parts that wear out. Fans, air filters and capacitors. Before we open a door on a running UPS, we read its arc-flash label and suit up to match it. A clogged filter makes the UPS run hot, so we clean it or replace it. With the UPS carrying your load, and the covers off in full protective gear, we scan the connections with a thermal camera. A loose connection shows up hot long before it burns. The more load on the UPS, the better it shows.
Check 6. The tests
Check six: the tests. If the batteries passed, and you agree, we switch the UPS to battery for a short test. That shows it picks up the load cleanly. If the batteries failed, we skip it. We don’t gamble with your equipment. A short test doesn’t prove your full runtime. If you need that number, we plan a timed runtime test with you.
Check 7. The major maintenance
Check seven: the major maintenance. Everything so far is the minor maintenance, done with the UPS online. Most sites also need a major one each year. It’s the one time your equipment runs without the UPS behind it, so we plan the window with you. We move the load to the maintenance bypass, isolate the UPS and its batteries, lock them out, and test for voltage before anyone works inside. Then we check the torque on the power connections, clean out the dust and change the filters. Before your load goes back on, we run the UPS through each operating mode.
APC and Schneider Electric
Each brand has its own weak spots. On an APC Symmetra PX or LX, the batteries slide out as modules, so we can swap them with your equipment still running. Schneider Electric stopped servicing the APC Galaxy 3500 in 2023. We still maintain them, and we help you plan the replacement before parts get hard to find.
Eaton and Powerware
Eaton’s 9155, 9355 and 93PM often keep their batteries in separate cabinets, in several strings. We test every string on its own. On older Eaton and Powerware units, capacitors and fans wear out with age. We replace them on a schedule, before they fail.
Vertiv Liebert
A hospital can have a whole fleet of Liebert GXT units. We test every one, then plan the replacements by age and result. On three-phase units like the Liebert EXM, it’s the full eight checks. Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Tripp Lite: we service them all, and you get the same report.
Check 8. The report
Check eight: the report. You get it in writing. Every reading, photos and thermal images, and a green, yellow or red rating for each unit. Then a short list of what to do next, starting with the most urgent. For that office, the batteries came back red: replace them now. And since the UPS itself was seventeen years old, we told them to start planning a new one.
Recap: minor vs major maintenance
To recap, here’s what each visit includes. A minor maintenance keeps your UPS online. We check the room, the log, the readings and every battery block. Then the parts that wear out, a thermal scan, and a short test if the batteries pass. A major maintenance adds a planned window on bypass. The UPS and batteries are isolated and locked out, the torque is checked, the inside is cleaned, and every operating mode is tested. Both end with a written report. If your batteries are four years old or more and nobody has tested them, have them tested before your next outage.
Outro
GDF Technologies does this visit across Canada. We offer support when you need it, and when something fails, we’re there day or night. We also offer extended warranties on parts and labour. And when it’s time for a new UPS, we do the consulting and engineering with you, from configuration to delivery and installation. Call us, or ask for a quote at gdftech.com. You’ll hear back within four business hours.
What a GDF UPS service contract contains
The agreement is short. It names every unit it covers and what happens to each one during the year:
- Covered equipment: a table of the units, with the number of minor and major maintenance visits per year for each one.
- Term and fee: a fixed term set in the agreement, for an annual fee.
- Firmware: upgrades are included.
- Repairs and parts: not included. They are billed at a rate grid agreed with you in advance, by UPS size class and by time band (regular hours, evenings, weekends), with a 4-hour minimum per technician.
- Consumables: air filters, fuses and fans are replaced at end of life, with the parts billed separately.
- Old batteries: taken back for recycling (standard maintenance scope).
- Follow-up: corrective work is scheduled from what the maintenance visits find.
- Scheduled visits: business hours (5×8) as the base; evenings, nights and weekends (7×24) as an option.
Service and maintenance contract or per visit, side by side
| Annual agreement | Per-visit service | |
|---|---|---|
| Visits | A set number of minor and major visits per unit per year, scheduled ahead | Booked and quoted each time |
| Written report | After every maintenance visit | After every maintenance visit |
| Readings over time | Compared from one visit to the next, so trends show | One set of readings at a time |
| Firmware upgrades | Included | Done when applicable during the visit |
| Repairs and parts | Billed at the rate grid agreed in the contract | Quoted with the job |
| Labour minimum | Repairs: 4 hours per technician, at the agreed rate grid | 4 hours on site per technician |
What each visit includes: minor and major
Every visit starts with the equipment running normally. A major visit adds the work done with the UPS on maintenance bypass and locked out.
| Task | Minor visit | Major visit |
|---|---|---|
| Room temperature and ventilation | Yes | Yes |
| Display and event log: outages, transfers, faults, last self-test | Yes | Yes |
| Input and output voltage, current and power, compared with past readings | Yes | Yes |
| Batteries: visual check, every block’s voltage and internal resistance | Yes | Yes |
| Thermal scan under load | Yes | Yes |
| Tightness and discoloration of every nut, bolt, screw and connector | No | Yes |
| Internal cleaning and new air filters | No | Yes |
| Calibration: rectifier, inverter, static switch, logic | No | Yes |
| Test of each operating mode | No | Yes |
| Battery charge and discharge check | No | Yes |
Most of a visit runs with the load protected; our guide to UPS maintenance without downtime shows which tasks need a bypass window and how it is planned.
How many visits a year
There is no single number. Eaton recommends a thermal scan for hot spots every three months and a complete mechanical review of the UPS and battery cabinets once a year, and says air filters must be inspected every month. How closely a contract follows that depends on the minor and major visits set for each unit in the covered-equipment table. On one commissioning, we set the first maintenance 12 months after start-up.
The written report
A report is what you keep from a visit, and what an auditor or the next technician will read. Ours follows the same bilingual template on every maintenance, battery and emergency visit:
- an inventory of the units with make, model, serial number, rating, location and a status colour for each;
- the recorded parameters per unit: input and output voltage per phase, frequency, load percent, power demand in kW, load balance, UPS, ambient and battery temperatures, battery make, model, install date and age, float voltage, remaining capacity, indicated runtime, self-test result and active alarms;
- the site context: external bypass or not, redundancy (N+1, 2N), and the generator, automatic, manual or none, and whether it is tested;
- the estimated remaining life of the batteries and of the UPS, with a green, yellow or red status;
- a card per unit with observations, the thermography result and numbered recommendations, and a site summary that ranks each issue by priority;
- photos of the front, rear, installation and findings, including thermal images;
- the signatures of the technician and the customer.
Across 150 written GDF reports, the most frequent recommendation is replacing batteries, in 34 percent of reports.
What documented maintenance is for
NFPA 70B, a US standard, has used mandatory language since its 2023 edition: where it is applied, a specific electrical maintenance program is required. Among the elements it lists: documented maintenance procedures for the equipment, a plan of inspections, servicing and suitable tests, a documentation and records-retention policy, and a process to prescribe, carry out and document corrective measures from the data collected. A visit schedule with a written report each time, and follow-up work scheduled from those reports, supplies the UPS records those elements call for.
Field example: what an annual visit finds
A school board runs a 48 kVA modular UPS in N+1 (four 12 kW power modules) with internal batteries 3 years old. The annual major visit, with thermography and internal resistance testing, found:
- weak or failed battery strings in all four power modules after only 3 years;
- a normal thermal scan;
- rack PDUs out of balance, 2.8 kW on one against 1 kW on another;
- an auto-start generator with no test routine.
The recommendations: replace all battery modules within 12 months, rebalance the PDUs and start monthly generator tests. Strings of 3 to 4 years failing resistance tests in heat or with mixed ages is a pattern across our reports, not a one-off.
A visit also turns a battery failure into a planned job. At a city hall, 6-year-old batteries measured 30 to 40 percent of their original capacity, and the report set their replacement within 6 to 12 months. Below about 50 percent remaining, that is our usual window; leaks or swelling make it immediate.
What Vertiv’s service records show
Vertiv sorted the UPS in its own service records by how many maintenance visits each contract specified over 12 months. It judged the observed reliability of its emergency-service-only group unreliable, since some of those units may have been maintained by others, and modelled a unit with no maintenance at all instead. Against that modelled unit, two visits a year give 23 times the mean time between failures. The figure describes Vertiv’s own fleet and assumes a low technician error rate: at one technician-caused failure per 100 visits, returns diminish beyond one visit a year.
For batteries, Vertiv reports that, to date, there have been no system outages caused by bad batteries on systems whose batteries were both professionally maintained and remotely monitored. On one older frame, we recommended annual maintenance plus 24/7 monitoring because of its age.
When per-visit service makes sense
- One small single-phase UPS. We treat small single-phase units as reaching end of life around 8 to 10 years. When the question is a tired battery cartridge, a one-time battery replacement or simply the right replacement battery is often the whole job: more than half of our battery requests are supply only. UPSPLUSBATTERY carries replacement UPS batteries.
- A UPS already scheduled for replacement. A one-time inspection covers it until the changeover, and the agreement starts with the new unit.
- A first look at an unknown installation. A single visit with a full report gives the inventory, the battery condition and the remaining life of each unit before you commit to a schedule.
Questions to ask any UPS maintenance provider
- How many minor and how many major visits per year does each unit get, and what does each include?
- Does the report give readings per unit, the voltage and internal resistance of every battery block, thermal images, a status per unit and numbered recommendations?
- Which parts of the visit run with the UPS online, and when is a bypass window needed?
- Are firmware upgrades included?
- How are repairs and parts billed, and is the rate grid written into the contract?
- Is there an after-hours option for the work that needs a bypass window?
- Do you take back and recycle the old batteries?
- What is the term, and what notice ends it?
Frequently asked questions
Is UPS maintenance billed per visit or under a contract?
Both exist. Under an agreement, each unit gets a set number of minor and major visits per year for an annual fee, and repairs follow a rate grid agreed in advance. Per-visit service is quoted each time, with labour billed per technician and a 4-hour minimum on site.
Are repairs and parts included in a UPS maintenance contract?
No. The agreement covers the scheduled visits and firmware upgrades. Repairs and parts are billed separately, at the rate grid set in the contract by UPS size class and time band.
Are firmware updates part of the annual visit?
Under a contract, yes: firmware upgrades are included. On a per-visit job, the update is done when it applies to the unit.
Will we get a written report after each visit?
Yes, after each maintenance visit: per-unit readings, photos, thermal images when a thermal scan is part of the visit, a colour status per unit (green, yellow or red), the estimated remaining life of the batteries and of the UPS, and numbered recommendations.
Do you take away the old batteries?
Yes. Old batteries are taken back for recycling as part of the standard maintenance scope.
What do you need from us to prepare a contract proposal?
The list of units with the model, serial number and rating in kVA, and a photo of each nameplate.
Get a maintenance agreement proposal
Send the list of units with the model, serial number, rating in kVA and a photo of each nameplate. We will propose how many minor and major visits each unit needs and the rate grid for repairs. See our UPS preventive maintenance service, contact GDF Technologies or call 514-252-8324.
Written by Christian Barkley, Director, GDF Technologies.
Sources
- GDF Technologies, service and preventive maintenance agreement, standard maintenance scope in 2026 quotes, 2026 report template and 150 written service reports (cases described without client, site or date).
- Eaton, Top five UPS components that require preventive maintenance. Air filter, thermal scan and mechanical review intervals; capacitor and battery planning.
- Vertiv, The effect of regular, skilled preventive maintenance and remote monitoring on critical power system reliability. Groups by visits per contract; the modelled no-maintenance unit; MTBF model; batteries with maintenance and monitoring.
- D. Colombo, A New Standard for Electrical Equipment Maintenance, EC&M, Oct. 10, 2023. NFPA 70B (2023): electrical maintenance program and its documented elements.
